Galaxy Macau

Galaxy Macau is one of the biggest single resorts in Macau, a self-contained town of gaming, hotels, dining and shopping on the Cotai strip. It opened in May 2011 and has been expanding ever since, and today it anchors one whole side of Cotai, with The Venetian Macao and Studio City Macau as its immediate neighbors. If you are planning a visit, here is what to expect: how to get there, what the casino offers, where you can sleep, and the practical rules at the door.

Location and how to get there

Galaxy Macau stands on Estrada da Baia de Nossa Senhora da Esperanca in Cotai, the reclaimed strip between Taipa and Coloane where most of Macau's largest resorts now cluster¹. The official casino address in Macau's concession documents places the Galaxy Macau Casino inside the resort on the same road⁷.

The resort is close to nearly every arrival point in Macau:

• Macau International Airport: 3.5 kilometers, about a ten-minute drive⁶
• Lianhu (Hengqin) border crossing: 500 meters, about a five-minute drive⁶

Free shuttle buses run on several routes.

If you are driving or taking a taxi, the resort has parking on site, and the main entrance is well signed from the Cotai road network. Once you are there, you barely need to leave on foot: Broadway Macau, the resort's sister property with its own theater and food street, is connected by an air-conditioned footbridge that takes about 90 seconds to cross⁸.

For a wider view of how the resorts connect, see getting to and around Macau's casinos.

The casino: tables, slots and VIP play

The casino at Galaxy Macau is one of the largest gaming floors in the world. Phase 1 opened with around 450 tables and 1,500 slot machines, and Phase 2 added capacity for up to 500 more tables and over 1,000 more slots, bringing the planned total to as many as 950 tables⁴. The Phase 2 gaming area alone covers about 30,000 square meters⁴.

What that means in practice:

• Table games. The bulk of the floor is given over to baccarat, Macau's dominant game, alongside blackjack, sic bo and the traditional Chinese games like fan tan and pai gow that you can read about separately. Minimums vary widely by table and by time of day, with the main-floor tables generally far cheaper than the high-limit rooms.
• Slots. Well over a thousand machines across the two phases, ranging from low-denomination reels to high-limit machines. See slot machines in Macau for how they work.
• VIP play. Galaxy has long run premium and VIP gaming areas within the main floor, the segment that historically drove Macau's biggest revenues. The junket system that once filled these rooms has shrunk dramatically since 2020; the premium-mass tables now do most of that work. Our page on junkets and VIP rooms in Macau covers the background.

Like all casinos in Macau, the gaming floors are open 24 hours a day³. For the games themselves in detail, start with casino games in Macau.

Where to stay at the resort

Galaxy Macau is as much a hotel collection as a casino. The resort's own materials list the properties under its umbrella: Galaxy Hotel, Banyan Tree Macau, Hotel Okura Macau, JW Marriott Macau, The Ritz-Carlton Macau, Broadway Hotel, Andaz Macau, Raffles at Galaxy Macau and Capella at Galaxy Macau, along with StarWorld Hotel on the peninsula¹⁰. At the time of the Phase 2 build, the resort counted over 3,600 rooms across five hotels, and the count has grown since⁴.

Each has its own character:

• Galaxy Hotel is the core property, the big family-and-gambling hotel at the center of the resort.
• Banyan Tree Macau, an all-suite hotel inside the resort, was one of the original luxury openings¹¹.
• Hotel Okura Macau brought Japanese hospitality to Cotai from the resort's early days¹².
• JW Marriott Macau and The Ritz-Carlton Macau anchor the newer tower, with the Ritz-Carlton's suites among the most expensive rooms in Macau.
• Raffles at Galaxy Macau and Capella at Galaxy Macau are the most recent ultra-luxury additions, aimed at travelers who want a quiet, design-led stay steps from the casino.
• Broadway Hotel sits across the footbridge in Broadway Macau, a more casual, entertainment-focused property⁸.

Beyond the hotels, the resort's Grand Resort Deck, a rooftop leisure complex of about 30,000 square meters added with Phase 2, holds one of the resort's best-known attractions: a large rooftop water park and pool area with a sandy beach and a wave pool, unusual for Macau⁴. The Galaxy Promenade is the resort's shopping and dining spine, running between the hotel towers and the casino.

The resort also hosts Galaxy Arena, a large indoor venue for concerts and sporting events, located inside the integrated resort itself¹³. It is worth checking what is on during your visit, because arena nights fill the hotels and the surrounding streets.

Entry rule: 21 and over only

You must be at least 21 to enter the casino areas at Galaxy Macau. Galaxy Entertainment Group states plainly that it strictly prohibits and prevents persons under 21 from entering its casino areas, with clear signage at the entrances¹⁴. This is not a house rule but Macau law: the legal age of entry to casinos across Macau is 21, and the same minimum applies to every casino in the territory³. Bring photo ID, because staff can and do check, especially for anyone who looks young. The rule applies equally to visitors, foreign residents and locals; there is no exemption for tourists. Children and teenagers can still enjoy the hotels, pools, shops and restaurants, just not the gaming floors. Our page on casino entry rules in Macau covers the details.

Self-exclusion scheme at Galaxy casinos

If you want to stop gambling, Macau has a formal self-exclusion scheme, and Galaxy's casinos participate fully. Galaxy Entertainment Group provides self-exclusion application forms and assistance at its casinos; you can start the process by speaking to a casino security officer, or apply directly to the DICJ, Macau's gaming regulator¹⁴.

The scheme works like this:

• You can ask to be excluded from all Macau casinos, or only some of them¹⁵.
• The DICJ director can bar the person from entering all or some casinos for a maximum period of two years¹⁶.
• A spouse, parent, child or other family member within the second degree of kinship can also request the exclusion of a relative, subject to confirmation¹⁷.
• If the application is submitted through a casino, the DICJ will contact the applicant to verify personal details, and the person must attend the DICJ office in person¹⁸.
• During the exclusion period, the excluded person may not enter or stay at the casinos covered by the order; breaching it is a crime of disobedience¹⁶.

You do not have to go to the regulator's office to start: Responsible Gaming Information Kiosks, located in the casino areas of the major operating casinos and at community locations around Macau, let both residents and tourists submit a self-exclusion application themselves¹⁹. Our page on self-exclusion from Macau casinos has the full step-by-step, and gambling help in Macau lists where to find support.

Expansion phases: what was built and what came next

Galaxy Macau has never stood still. The timeline of the resort so far:

• Phase 1, May 2011. The resort opened to global acclaim with the original hotel towers, casino floor of around 450 tables and 1,500 slots, and the first version of the Grand Resort Deck⁴.
• Phase 2, launched 2012, opened May 27, 2015. Construction began in April 2012 with a targeted completion of mid-2015, and the phase opened on schedule on May 27, 2015, together with the repositioned Broadway Macau across the footbridge⁴. Phase 2 added up to 500 tables and over 1,000 slots, the 30,000-square-meter gaming area, the expanded Grand Resort Deck, and the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton towers⁴.
• The third phase and beyond. The hotel list has kept growing, with Andaz Macau, Raffles at Galaxy Macau and Capella at Galaxy Macau added in later phases, alongside Galaxy Arena¹⁰. Galaxy Entertainment Group was already operating five casinos in Macau before Galaxy Macau itself opened, and the Cotai resort became the group's flagship²⁰.

The result is a resort that now functions as a destination in its own right: you can arrive by shuttle from the airport, check into anything from Broadway Hotel to Raffles, spend the day at the rooftop water park, shop along the promenade, see a show at the arena, and play on one of the largest casino floors in Asia without ever leaving the property. For the wider picture of how Cotai came to be, see casinos in Macau and the history of gambling in Macau.